Mark Harris

Originally written in 1959, this is the hilariously explosive account of Youngdahl, a novelist, playwright, ex-Mormon, and father of seven. He is a frenzied man who is beginning a letter-writing campaign to escape his curiously ironic situation, and, of course, his profession. Along with Abner Klang, his not-so-literary agent who seems to have misplaced the F key on his typewriter, Youngdahl joins forces with a Mormon bishop, a TV adapter, and a prizefighter,...

Winner of the 1991 New American Writing Award.   Originally published in 1952, this poignant, romantic biography of the poet Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) is well worth a second chance. From early on, Lindsay was a wanderer, tramping hundreds of miles along country roads, visiting small towns, never holding a job, writing poems of uplift and defiance, and giving them, or his drawings, away on the streets, selling them for food or declaiming them on...

"A magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges--some of the worst largely unknown until now--by the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back. Mike Nichols burst onto the scene as a wunderkind without parallel: while still in his 20's, he was half of a lucrative hit improv duo with Elaine May that was the talk of the country....

In Pictures at a Revolution, Mark Harris turned the story of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967 into a landmark work of cultural history, a book about the transformation of an art form and the larger social shift it signified. In Five Came Back, he achieves something larger and even more remarkable, giving us the untold story of how Hollywood changed World War II, and how World War II changed Hollywood, through the prism of five film...

The Islamic Republic of Iran is at the center of world attention politically, socially, and culturally but it remains largely a cipher to the West. Award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris has traveled throughout Iran to produce the first contemporary photographic book on a place seldom seen or understood. His images of daily life offer a fascinating look at a society of juxtapositions ancient and modern, commercial and spiritual, serene and...

Coming of age in America by way of the baseball diamond, left-hander Henry Wiggen grows to manhood in a right-handed world. From his small-town beginnings, to the top of the game, Henry finds out how hard it is to please his coach, his girl, the sports page and himself-all at once. The first installation of a series that includes Bang the Drum Slowly, The Southpaw is a comic and poignant look at Henry Wiggen's first season in the majors. Based on...

Oscar-winning filmmakers Deborah Oppenheimer and Mark Jonathan Harris reunite for a revealing first-hand look at the foster care system as seen through the eyes of those who know it best. With extraordinary access to the inner workings of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), Oppenheimer and Harris go beyond the sensational headlines and stereotypes.

By the time Nate Fisher was laid to rest in a woodland grave sans coffin in the final season of Six Feet Under, Americans all across the country were starting to look outside the box when death came calling. This book follows families who found in "green" burial a more natural, more economic, and ultimately more meaningful alternative to the tired and toxic send-off on offer at the local funeral parlor. Eschewing chemical embalming and fancy caskets,...

A meticulously crafted portrait of the American nuclear family in crisis charts the rift that forms within a 1960s Montana household when the father and breadwinner abruptly departs to fight the forest fires raging nearby, leaving his restless wife and teenage son to pick up the pieces. A deeply human look at a woman's wayward journey toward self-fulfillment in the pre-women's liberation era and a sensitively observed, child's eye coming-of-age tale....

Unhappy in her new school where she is the favorite target of bullies, ten-year-old Melissa finds comfort and gains self-confidence through her relationship with a visitor from another planet.